“A potential partner with too little mate value is an unacceptable long-term partner choice, whereas one with too much mate value might not be attainable or retainable as a long-term mate,” they write. “The image of the ‘ideal’ and ‘attainable’ partner should therefore correspond closely.” In other words, a 7 may look like a perfect 10 to another 7.
To an economist like Oyer, potential mates—as well as jobs—are “differentiated goods.” “No two jobs and no two life partners are the same,” he said. That makes websites that aggregate prospective choices, such as monster.com and match.com in their respective realms, especially useful. By allowing users to narrow their searches before investing time in investigating a position or mate, they save their customers valuable time.
It’s not the language of poets and minstrels, but as Oyer put it: “Why are you single? Loneliness is just romantic unemployment.”
PAUL OYER
